Kites were given to every kid at the festival. The windmills, in the background, are
200 feet high.
Hooray For The Wind
GAY BROWN LEE
Somerset Co. Correspondent
GARRETT (Somerset Co.)
Wind. You can’t see it, but, you
can feel it. You can heat it.
Wind is a kid's thing. It is ev
erybody’s thing.
Wind can be scary. It can put
us to sleep at night.
Wind can lift a kite high to the
sky. Balloons, too.
Wind housecleans the trees in
springtime.
Wind brings relief to hot, swel
tering, summer days.
Wind moves sailboats across
the water. It makes waves.
Wind blows off your hat and
makes you chase it.
Wind drops dead branches
from trees (for bonfires and wee
nie roasts).
Wind sends fall leaves topsy
turvy in autumn.
Wind arranges snowdrifts for
winter fun.
Wind turns windmills.
Wind produces electricity.
Wind, wind, wind.
Hooray for the wind.
Speaking of wind, eight wind
mills were built in Somerset
County a few weeks ago. near a
small town called Garrett. The
group of windmills is called
Green Mountain Wind Farm.
They were built to produce
electricity.
On top of each windmill long
blades rotate in a huge circle. As
the blades spin, electricity is
made.
Then, people buy the electrici
ty produced by the wind.
With the electricity they buy,
people turn on lights, heat their
homes in winter and cool them in
summer.
They also operate factories
that manufacture cars, trucks,
clothes and other items.
Because people buy electricity.
water is pumped into their
homes to run out of faucets at
sinks and bathtubs. And toilets
are flushed.
Also, food can be cooked on
stoves and cooled in refrigerators
and freezers.
Computers, televisions, wash
ing machines and machines that
milk cows, use electricity. So do
electronic scoreboards at ball
games.
Everyday, kids and grownups
use electricity to work and play.
Wind is “Renewable” energy.
Wind, you know, goes by and
comes back again. It always
seems to return. That makes it
renewable.
GreenMountain.com and
American National Wind Power
are companies that own the
Green Mountain Wind Farm. To
build the windmills, they first
asked permission from the own
ers of the ground they wanted to
use for the project. The landown
ers were brothers, Donald Deck
er and Robert Decker.
The Decker men said “Yes,”
because they were excited about
windmills. Nobody in Somerset
County had ever had windmill
farm with gigantic towers like
these would be.
After they got permission to go
ahead, the companies hired all
kinds of people with many skills
to develop the Green Mountain
Wind Farm. Even workers on
the other side of the Atlantic
Ocean. Building a wind farm
seemed like a very technical, or
complicated, project.
Kids like Lacey Decker, 12,
are learning that wind can pro
duce electricity without polluting
the environment. Lacey lives at
the wind farm. In May 2000,
when the Green Mountain peo
ple held the Wind Farm Festival,
Lacey Decker got to throw the
Komer
switch to start up a windmill
Boy, did she ever get cool gifts
like posters and a jacket. _ _ . _ .
Jessica Minerd, Kristen Ri- FeaBter * 5 ’ show# 8 wind,n,,, »* amtad on h,s
tenour, and Amy Ritenour
from Connellsville, were all
over the place trying to fly
their neat kites. Gosh, it was
windy.
Little Corey Feaster from
Short Gap, W.Va., grinned ail
over when a lady painted a
windmill on his hand
Other kids tossed rings at
the “Ring-a-Renewable” peg
game. Different colored pegs
represented energy sources
that produces electricity. Lots
of black pegs stood for coal.
Yellow ones were for nuclear,
blue were natural gas, brown
were for oil and purple were
hydroelectric. Last, three green
pegs for renewables.
The kids learned that pollu
tion makes a big drop when
electric power is produced by a
renewable source like wind.
Kids can bring their parents
and friends to see the wind
mills at work. Just stop by a
small park that you can’t miss
on Schrock Road and read all
stuff printed on the big
plaques.
Pennsylvania Turnpike, Exit
10, Route 219 S. to Garrett, or
visit www.greenmountain. com
on the internet.
Hooray for the wind!
UUlljf Lacey Decker lives on the land where eight windmills
JL ''(// were built near Garrett, Somerset County. She got cool
Y presents for throwing a switch to start up a windmill.
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